


I am

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, First War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5918488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I am angry</p>
            </blockquote>





	I am

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

Last night, I was strong.

He came home, from another assignment, and collapsed at my feet in a sobbing heap. I was so shocked that for a moment, I couldn't bring myself to move. I wanted to kneel down and wrap him up in my arms and kiss him and make the world disappear and promise him that it would never come back. And I did, eventually, sort of, more or less. But only after the shock passed.

He'd only cried once before, and that too, was in front of me. And I'd been just as shocked then, because he didn't cry. Not at all, not ever, not even a little bit. But he cried now, and my heart wanted to break and I wanted to cry with him, just because. But I held him and I was strong.

Later, much later, when his tears had dried into little trails of salt on his unshaven face, I asked him what had happened.

A werewolf, he said. There had been a werewolf. The Death Eaters had captured a werewolf. He'd seen a werewolf. He repeated it to me as if I didn't understand. It had been in a cage, but as a man. They'd had a man in a cage. A man, he repeated, in a cage. The moon came out, the full moon and the man began to transform. Just like you, he told me. And in the middle of the transformation, in the middle of a scream, they'd cursed him. They cast Cruciatus on him, midway through the transformation. And he died there, screaming, and even dead, he became a wolf. And he looked like me. Apparently.

And even then, with images of my own dead body floating through my mind, I was strong. I was strong because if I wasn't, he would cry again, and then I really would want to die because never in my worst nightmares was I the one to make him weep.

And now, I am angry.

Because he's upstairs sleeping, and I can hear him tossing and muttering and I know he's seeing me and all the different ways I could be dead. I know because I have dreams too, when he's gone, and I wake up cold and sweating and wanting to scream because I dreamed of a life without him.

I am angry not because people are suffering, but because their suffering is hurting him. I am angry because I am selfish, because when he hurts, I hurt. I am angry because I let myself be angry when I promised myself I wouldn't be.

And because it's such a delicious feeling, and so rarely am I able to properly savor it that I revel in it's taste. And it's bitter, and I like it, and I am angry that I do. I used to wonder how people could spend so much time hating and being caught up in their anger and now, I know. It clears your head and your heart of all other feelings and festers in you until it hurts so much that you want it to bleed out your ears.

I am angry that they hurt him, because he's not theirs to hurt. He's mine.

They don't hear his voice in every lingering silence. They don't see his face in every empty corner. They don't know each and every scar and scratch on his body like I do and they never will. They don't have a million and one memories of him woven into the fabric of his favorite red chair. They don't know that he tastes like frozen peppermint and I'm sure beyond a single bloody doubt that they don't look into his eyes and find themselves seeing shards of Erised.

So they can all go to hell on a broomstick, which they can then shove up their arses.

Because I have all of those things, and the thought of losing them pains me more than I could ever tell. The thought of losing him isn't even comprehendible because without him, I am nothing and without him, I would never feel again, because without him, my heart would break and burn and there would be nothing left to feel except alone.

Which is why I need to let this anger pass, and go back to being strong, because then I can go upstairs and lie with him and whisper comfort into his hair and kiss his lips before any words of worry can escape them. And up there, with him, there is no place for anger or pain because we take up the whole bed, like we always do, and between the two of us, there will be no room for fear, or doubt, or even sleep for that matter, which we won't plan on doing anyway in light of the many other, more pleasurable things we like to do.

And there is always room for those.

The truth is, I am angry and I am strong because in times like these... when every day stands on the edge of a precipice and the first ray of the sun might be the last thing you see and your reason for living is that there may not be all that much time for you to live **in** and you go to sleep every night holding your loved ones that much closer and your greatest fear in the entire world is that soon, very soon, something will happen to make you lose your balance and you'll fall before you are ready...

In times like these, I don't know what else to be.

So I'll be what I've always been, which is whatever he needs me to be, because first and foremost, above all else, I am in love.


End file.
